


the soft stars that shine at night

by merthurlin



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, c/w finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurlin/pseuds/merthurlin
Summary: A few months after the dust settles, Orth makes a grave for an old friend.





	the soft stars that shine at night

**Author's Note:**

> title from Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye

A few months after the dust settles - after Rigour’s defeat, the royal funeral, the beginning of Weight’s rebuilding - Orth makes AuDy a grave. It is, perhaps, not what they would have chosen for themself, but Orth has never been good at taking directions from AuDy, and he certainly wasn’t going to start improving that now that they were… gone? Dead? Can a Divine die? Was AuDy ever anything but a Divine, or was a Divine everything they ever were, just unknowingly?

Orth was never one much for philosophy - for one, it reminded him too much of Ibex, and that was not a can of worms he was eager to open.

_(That Ibex had a grave and AuDy didn’t never set right with him, either.)_

For another, he was much too busy for philosophy. Establishing new ties and connections, now that so much of the political landscape of the Golden Branch Sector has changed took time and effort, and has left very little space for anything else. Making sure Aria Joy had her new position secured, keeping an eye on the first elections of the new Demarchy, and always looking backwards, to OriCon, keeping watch that no one else was coming up behind him, ready to snatch away everything he has worked for. Maybe he owns some of his newfound vigilance to Ibex after all, but it’s an uncomfortable thought, and one he does not indulge in. Work, after all, is never ending, and rigorous focus is rewarded.

But making a grave - that, that he can do.

In OriCon, they still bury their dead. He knows that in the Diaspora the cremate their corpses, and who even knows what the Apostolisian do with theirs, but OriCon allows itself to be old-fashioned with just this one thing. Good business, it is - tombstones and real estate and catering, all in one full swoop. The grave is then decorated with holograms of the deceased, some sort of a grim, frozen memorial to a person that does not exist anymore.

Orth doesn’t have a body to bury, and the few minutes of footage of AuDy he has managed to find is them engaging in some sort of illegal activity, but he tries. He rents a small space in the Rethal-Dawn memorial spaceport, not because he thinks AuDy might have had any sort of attachment to it, but it was convenient for him, traveling as often as he was. He edits together a few frames where one could squint and pretend AuDy wasn’t threatening someone or stealing something, enlisted J-M to find a hologram of the Kingdom Come to put beside it. Orth loved the Kingdom Come, but he thinks AuDy might have _lived_ by it, the one thing that was really, truly theirs.

_(Or, at least, the one thing they allowed themself to consider as theirs. The Chime, after all, never answered to another robot.)_

He doesn’t visit it much, after. He is a busy man, and Counterweight is only one planet out of many that need his attention. AuDy didn’t have a birthday, and the day that they died is an intergalactic holiday, celebrating the solidarity that led to Rigour’s defeat, ignoring that without the Chime the Golden Sector Branch would have probably fought itself to complete annihilation.

He comes on the date of his first meeting with the Chime - when AuDy strood into his office, Cass, Mako and Aria trailing behind them, answering an ad he put up on the mesh. He comes on days he receives a taxi without ordering one, when the mesh around him hums a little louder and the lights on the street are flickering in pattern he does not understand. He comes on Cass’ birthday, a day that once might have been a national holiday, but one that was lost alongside Cass’ legacy as a reluctant ruler.

_(Aria once called him, begging him to help her fight the new history books, the ones that depict Cass as a tyrant, another narcissistic scion who defied their own sibling to keep their hands on the throne. Orth tried, he did, but the people will believe what they will, and history is never written by the winners - it’s written by those with the best story.)_

He comes after Aria’s wedding, a beautiful and dramatic ceremony, as befitting the woman who planned it. He comes after the last time he saw Mako, a little quieter, a little more focused, a little less bright.

He comes after he releases Ibex’s biography, placing a copy of it besides the holograms.

He comes before he leaves the Golden Branch Sector, promoted to a higher position in OriCon.

He never comes again, but he pays the rent every month without fail.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me about audy on twitter @merthurlin


End file.
